Development of hockey in the United States at all levels, from kids’ minor systems to the international stage and the pros, continues to mushroom thanks to Gretzky trade

The face of hockey in the United States could well be Chicago Blackhawks star Patrick Kane, two-time Stanley Cup champion, Conn Smythe Trophy winner and recent guest on the David Letterman Show.

But would hockey’s higher profile, would the grassroots growth of the sport have been possible without the August 1988 trade of Wayne Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings?

After all, Kane, a Buffalo native, says his hockey hero growing up was Pat LaFontaine, one of a cluster of U.S. stars, along with Chris Chelios, Ed Olczyk, Tony Amonte, Al Iafrate and others, to emerge in the 1980s, predating hockey’s most transformative trade.

“The move when (then-Oilers owner) Peter Pocklington traded Wayne Gretzky to Los Angeles was just gigantic,” said Dave Ogrean, executive director of USA Hockey. “It’s one of the blockbuster moves in the history of the sport.

“And L.A. was perfect (as a destination). It was perfect for Wayne, and it was perfect for hockey.

“It’s hard to measure, but you just see (following the trade) that the game is bigger, better, more embraced, held in higher esteem. It has a different, hotter, sexier cachet about it than it did before.”

The growth of hockey culture in the U.S. in the two-and-a-half decades since the Gretzky trade is undeniable. In 1990-91, for example, USA Hockey had 195,125 registered players; in 2012-13, there are 510,279.

The reasons for that growth are multifactorial, obviously, but Ogrean and most other astute hockey observers certainly include Gretzky’s presence in L.A. as a key factor.

Wayne Gretzky sits in the Coliseum penalty box while visiting Edmonton as a member of the New York Rangers in October 1997.

Photograph by: Edmonton Journal file photo

Ogrean cites four “touchstones” in the evolution of hockey in the U.S., two of which he categorizes as “gifts from Canada.”

It’s hard to measure, but you just see (following the trade) that the game is bigger, better, more embraced, held in higher esteem. It has a different, hotter, sexier cachet about it than it did before.
Dave Ogrean

The first was Bobby Orr coming out of Parry Sound, Ont., and the junior Oshawa Generals to lead the Boston Bruins from mediocrity to the Stanley Cup in the early 1970s.

“That had a huge motivational impact,” Ogrean said.

The 1980 Miracle on Ice at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics changed the game in the U.S., and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s Sun Belt strategy in the 1990s is another landmark.

The final one was Gretzky’s arrival in L.A., delivering the sort of impact on the West Coast that Orr had on the East — only much more so. “If you’re a kid, you like stars, and Wayne Gretzky was the biggest of all time,” Ogrean said. “He was hockey’s Michael Jordan. He’s in the conversation not as the greatest player of his generation, but as the greatest of all time.

“He was the Pied Piper for our sport in the U.S. After he moved to L.A., hockey became something to pursue as opposed to something to do.” Gretzky certainly changed U.S. attitudes toward the Canadian game as no one had before or has since, as no one else could have done to such an extent.

Reggie Hall, now the Dallas-based president of the Texas Minor Hockey Association, was living in Los Angeles at the time and was a Kings’ season-ticket holder.

“In the year before the trade, generally, you could get a seat anywhere you wanted to in the Forum,” Hall said. “Probably between 5,000 to 7,000 people showed up at the games regularly, and the tickets were dirt cheap.”

Right after the Gretzky deal, Hall said, the Kings jacked up the ticket prices and sellouts became commonplace.

Mike Modano models the new-look Dallas Stars jersey in June 2013.

Source: LM Otero/Associated Press

“If you were anybody in Los Angeles, you were at the L.A. Kings games at the Forum,” Hall said, recalling the days of Hollywood stars like Goldie Hawn and her husband, Kurt Russell, and Sylvester Stallone sitting at ice level, just the way Jack Nicholson did — and still does — at Lakers’ NBA games. “It became the ‘in’ thing for the celebrities to do.”

Perhaps more importantly, for hockey development in the U.S., more kids got interested in playing hockey, and momentum to grow a grassroots hockey culture was launched.

But did Gretzky’s impact on the NHL’s incursion into California and the minor hockey growth that went with it translate into growth in, say, Texas, as well?

Hall sure thinks so. Five years after being traded to the Kings, Gretzky led Los Angeles to the Stanley Cup final in 1993. The following season, the Minnesota North Stars relocated to Dallas.

“And suddenly, the Rocky Mountain District just took off,” he said, referring to the minor hockey region that includes Texas, Colorado and Oklahoma. “With the Stars’ arrival here, suddenly hockey was hot in the Southwest.”

He was the Pied Piper for our sport in the U.S. After he moved to L.A., hockey became something to pursue as opposed to something to do.
Dave Ogrean

How hot? Well, in 1993-94, Hall said, there were 13,500 registered players in the Rocky Mountain District. By 2012-13, participation was up to about 40,000.

There has been parallel minor hockey growth in USA Hockey’s southeast region, which includes Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas. In 1990-91, there were 4,462 registered players in that region; by the end of 2011, the number had grown to 42,998.

Wayne Gretzky shoots wide on Edmonton Oilers goalie Curtis Joseph as a member of the New York Rangers in November 1996.

Photograph by: Edmonton Journal file photo

“Really, I think that a lot of what we see today, the success of USA Hockey and the growth of USA Hockey really has its origins in Gretzky coming to the States and creating an awareness of the game that simply didn’t exist before,” Hall said. “Certainly, it existed in the traditional markets like Michigan, Massachusetts and Minnesota.

“But until (people), particularly people from the southwest, saw Gretzky, that’s where the growth areas have been for the last 10 to 15 years.” People in the American southwest lay claim to a certain ownership of Seth Jones, the Portland Winterhawks star and the fourth pick in the NHL draft, who was born in Plano, Texas, and played Midget AAA for the Dallas Stars minor hockey system.

Emerson Etem played junior hockey with the Medicine Hat Tigers, was drafted 29th overall by the Anaheim Ducks in 2010, but he’s from Long Beach, a product of the California minor hockey system that Gretzky’s move to L.A. gave such energy to.

That impact was such that, in 1994, Gretzky was awarded the Lester Patrick Trophy, presented jointly by the NHL and USA Hockey since 1966 to honour outstanding contributions to hockey in the United States.

Perhaps more flattering to Gretzky is that the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, based in Eveleth, Minn., created a Wayne Gretzky Award in 1999 to honour contributions to the game by non-Americans. The likes of the Gordie Howe family, Scotty Bowman and Russian coaching legend Anatoli Tarasov have won that award.

In ’99, the year Gretzky retired as an NHL player, he was the first recipient of the award the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame named for him, yet another unique tribute to how he is perceived around the world of hockey and, particularly, in his adoptive country.

Wayne Gretzky reaches to give a high-five to a young fan at New York’s Madison Square Garden following his final NHL game in April 1999.

Source: Edmonton Journal file photo

“The trade had a huge impact,” said Phil Housley, a former NHL defenceman for the Buffalo Sabres, among other teams. “I think it really set the table for (U.S. minor hockey) to get to the next level.

I think that a lot of what we see today, the success of USA Hockey and the growth of USA Hockey really has its origins in Gretzky coming to the States and creating an awareness of the game that simply didn’t exist before.
Reggie Hall

“I think it moved in stages, with the 1980 Olympic gold medal a big starting point, because it was composed of a lot of amateur guys that went on to have very good NHL careers.”

Housley, who was drafted out of the Minnesota high school system in 1982, coached Seth Jones and Team USA to the gold medal at the World Junior Hockey Championship last year, a banner year internationally for American hockey. The U.S. women’s team defeated Canada for gold in the Women’s World Hockey Championship and the U.S. men won bronze at the World Hockey Championship.

Twenty-five years after the Gretzky trade, more and more kids are playing hockey in non-traditional, Sun Belt markets in the U.S., and more and more elite players from places like Dallas, Edmon, Okla., Long Beach, Calif., and Las Vegas (Jason Zucker) are being drafted by NHL teams. At the 2013 NHL Draft in New Jersey, 57 American-born players were selected, two more than in the 2012 draft.

If Gretzky being traded from the Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings was, as Ogrean says, a “gift from Canada,” it is one that keeps on giving.